I have been working on Ubuntu Linux for a couple of days now. I think it is time to post my thoughts on this wonderful piece of software.Ubuntu literally means: 'For humanity'. This is an African word. It is made by Canonical Ltd. based in the Isle of Man. For more info just look into the Wikipedia.

PrologueI really noticed Ubuntu for the first time at Santosh's place when I saw the original CD lying there. Fox told me about their free shipping thing. Ubuntu gives away Cd's of the latest version for free. That includes the shipping cost as well. There are various options available to order. Just go to the site and register to see them. I ordered for 15 CD pack; the smallest available. We can track our requests at the site and they sent it to the shipping company on 7th November and usually 4-6 weeks takes for delivery. I got my package three days back. The package was very safe and CD packs were placed inside a bubble wrapper.

LooksThe version is 5.10 and called the Breezy Badger. Each pack contains an install CD and a live CD. Good choice since the users can interact with the system before installing it. The CD cover is made of cardboard and is of a good design.

Live CDThe first live CD I used did not work. There is a consistency checker program that loads along with the CD. It showed errors when checked. I had some doubts in my mind. But all was cleared with the next live CD. it worked like a dream. The fastest live CD I have ever used. And the interface is very likable.

InstallationI had placed a partition as free in order to install this. But the trouble was that the partition manager was detecting my secondary as a single partition. Seems to be a problem with my disc. I could only make a dynamic disk with simple partitions while partitioning the disk and it has to imported when taken else where. Somebody clear my doubts on this, please.Since I had space to play with. I moved the contents of an entire partition and deleted it.Now I could format it into native Linux system and install the OS. From here everything went smooth. No trouble with hardware detection. The only issue here is the unfriendly partition options and manager. Other than that installation was very smooth.

WorkingVery good looking welcome screen awaits you at the other side. The load speed is fairly matched with that of Windows XP. The only issue I had was that after I enabled my network, I had to switch on the cable modem in order to boot in faster, Well, the speed is very good. The interface is very simple. Your windows disks are auto mounted. A real boon since this used to be a royal pain in the ass, earlier. The thing that blew me away was that the net speed seemed to have increased by two fold. Images were loading very fast and my mail checking was finished some good 10 minutes earlier than usual. No its not my imagination.The major disappointment is the lack of softwares. Sure, there are lot of them available to be installed, but still where is emacs,vim, xmms, xine etc. The mp3, other proprietary formats won't work until you download the codecs. There are easy commands to install them. Visit the Ubuntu Wiki page.The built in players are not very good. Especially the video player, Totem player. I completely sucks for me. Slow frame rates or error for most files. Has to download Xine. The audio player, Rhythm Box, is good as a library but very cumber some as a player. Just downloaded XMMS and it is like the winamp of older times. A lot of stuff to download in order to make this a cutting edge system.

My Verdict?It is the closest you can get to a Windows replacement. The government should take this into their IT programs. The easiest you can get and frankly for employees using a software, does the OS really matter as long as they are slugging at one software. There is an offering called “Edubuntu- Linux for young human beings” especially for children and family. That would do a lot of good to the kids in the IT @school programs. Only employing Linux would dissolve the digital divide and drive the usage price of a PC down to earth in a legitimate way.

Cd's???I got some Cd's to give away. 1 set is not good since the live CD is damaged. 2 64 bit Cd's are reserved for Dinkan and Sreenath who have AMD 64 PC's. Haris and Santhosh have asked for one each. I have decided to give the rest to my friends in the Linux class. Another shipment would come at the end of this month and that has 20 Cd's. So more Cd's for my friends who won't be getting it the first time. If there is any one out there with a Mac ( i have got two mac Cd's left and a 64 bit one) please contact me if you want the distro.

@danys Inthe linux class we just learned to connect to the master system with linux and type a few commands which we don't use in real life! Ubuntu is easy to use except while installing, which is actually due to the fact that we have windows and doesnt want to harm it in any way. Still it is easy to use.Don't bother abput installation.I'll give a detailed how to in my tech blog.